Chapter 8: Silver in His Eyes

Cassian dropped hard onto the stairs.

Stone bit into his knees.

His sword rang once against the crypt floor before skidding into darkness.

Lyra lunged for him before she realized she’d moved.

“Cassian.”

Black veins spread beneath his skin.

Starting at his throat.

Climbing fast.

His left eye remained dark.

His right had gone entirely silver.

Not reflective.

Not human.

Lucien swore under his breath.

“No.”

Cassian braced one hand against the stair.

His fingers shook.

The veins continued upward across his jaw like cracked ink beneath skin.

“Don’t touch me,” he said.

Too late.

Lyra already had both hands on his shoulders.

Heat slammed through her palms.

Wrong heat.

His body burned like metal left too long in fire.

Another crack split the crypt ceiling.

Stone thundered onto the floor behind them.

The dead kings began convulsing where they knelt.

Their armor rattling violently against marble.

The Hollow Queen’s laughter echoed from nowhere and everywhere at once.

Lucien snatched Cassian’s fallen sword off the ground.

“Get him up.”

Cassian shoved Lyra backward with more force than expected.

“Move.”

He staggered to his feet alone.

Breathing hard.

Like every inhale hurt.

“Cassian—”

“I said move.”

His voice doubled at the edges.

One his.

One not.

Lyra went still.

Lucien noticed it too.

He slowly stepped back.

“Tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”

Cassian wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

Didn’t answer.

That was answer enough.

Lyra felt sick.

The black veins pulsing through Cassian looked too much like the shadows under the throne.

Too much like the Hollowed.

Too much like possession.

“You’re infected.”

Cassian laughed once.

Dry.

Humorless.

“Worse.”

The crypt shook violently.

The stairwell ceiling cracked open above them.

Dust rained over their shoulders.

Lucien gripped Cassian’s sword tighter.

“How long?”

Cassian stayed silent.

“How long?” Lucien repeated.

A beat.

“Since childhood.”

Lyra stared.

Even Lucien looked punched hollow.

“What?”

Cassian’s silver eye shifted toward the pit.

Toward the dark.

“My father opened the gates eighteen years ago.”

The words landed like falling stone.

“He thought he could control what lived beneath the palace.”

Lucien looked like he might be sick.

“No.”

“Yes.”

The black veins spread farther.

Across Cassian’s collarbone now.

Beneath the ripped neckline of his shirt.

“Something crossed through.”

Lyra understood before he said it.

And wished she didn’t.

“It chose you.”

Cassian’s silence confirmed everything.

Another corpse king screamed from the floor.

The sound tore through the crypt.

Lyra barely heard it.

Her thoughts had narrowed around one impossible thing.

Cassian carried something inside him.

Something ancient.

Something tied to the Hollow Queen.

And she carried the Hollow Queen’s heart.

No wonder their magic tore open whenever they touched.

They were not connected.

They were pieces of the same ruin.

The realization hollowed her.

Lucien exhaled slowly.

“Mother knew.”

“Yes.”

“All these years.”

“Yes.”

“And she let you…”

Cassian’s expression sharpened.

“Finish that sentence.”

Lucien didn’t.

Because there was nothing useful to say.

The palace cracked again above them.

A massive stone slab broke loose from the crypt ceiling and slammed onto the stairs.

Blocking half the exit.

Dust exploded through the chamber.

Lyra coughed.

Then froze.

Something moved inside the dust.

A shape.

Tall.

Female.

Walking toward them barefoot across shattered stone.

The Hollow Queen stepped into view.

Fully formed now.

Black hair dragging over marble like river water. Skin pale enough to glow in darkness. A cavity gaped in the center of her chest where a heart should be.

Empty.

Waiting.

Silver eyes fixed on Lyra.

Mine.

Cassian stepped between them.

Barely upright.

Lucien moved beside him.

Steel ready.

Neither prince looked remotely strong enough for this.

The Hollow Queen smiled at Cassian.

“Your father begged me too.”

Cassian’s jaw tightened.

“I’m not him.”

“No,” she agreed softly. “You’re weaker.”

His silver eye flashed.

Darkness burst from him like shattered glass.

The force hit the crypt walls hard enough to split stone.

Lyra stumbled.

Lucien cursed.

Cassian bent double with a broken sound in his throat.

The thing inside him was pushing back.

Fighting to get out.

The Hollow Queen looked delighted.

“There you are.”

Lyra didn’t think.

She moved.

She caught Cassian as he collapsed forward and wrapped both arms around him.

His body locked instantly against hers.

Heat.

Pain.

Magic detonated between them.

Silver light burst from Lyra’s skin.

Black shadow erupted from Cassian’s.

The crypt vanished.

Vision swallowed them whole.

Lyra stood in darkness.

Not the crypt.

Somewhere older.

A ruined throne room beneath a black sky.

Cassian stood before her wearing chains made of shadow.

Younger.

Maybe twelve.

Blood running from his nose.

A woman’s voice whispered from the dark:

Take him or lose the kingdom.

A man knelt beside the child.

A king.

Crown slipping sideways on his head.

Cassian’s father.

Sobbing.

“Please.”

The shadows wrapped tighter around the boy.

Cassian screamed.

The vision snapped.

Lyra slammed back into the crypt gasping.

Cassian sagged against her chest.

Unconscious.

The black veins had stopped spreading.

For now.

Lucien stared at both of them.

“What did you do?”

Lyra shook.

“I don’t know.”

But the Hollow Queen knew.

Her expression had changed.

For the first time—

Fear.

She stepped back toward the pit.

“No.”

Lyra felt it too.

Something new inside herself.

Not borrowed power.

Not rage.

Control.

The dead kings slowly rose around her.

Not attacking.

Waiting.

Listening.

The Hollow Queen’s empty chest darkened.

Her voice sharpened.

“If you keep him alive… you doom the world.”

Lyra tightened her grip around Cassian’s unconscious body.

Blood soaked through her hands from the wound in his ribs.

She looked directly at the ancient queen.

Then said the one thing that made every shadow in the crypt go still.

“Then let it burn.”